Life is change, and as humans we are often more adaptable than we may feel is possible. The short film Mondale Courting, by first-time director Mary Moskoff, takes a look at the way some Madison neighbors fought back against isolation during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic — and the neighborhood unity that has grown since then. The film screens as part of the program "Real People/Real Places," April 14 and 15.
The film's main subject is Toni Jakovec, a member of the Madison Music Collective (and editor of the Greater Madison Jazz Consortium's informative email newsletter) and an avid fan of jazz music — particularly seeing and hearing it live. Before the pandemic, Jakovec had moved to Mondale Court, a cul-de-sac just off Old Middleton Road on the west side. When public events went on an extended pause due to COVID, Jakovec missed the connection of in-person concerts. Hearing about neighborhood driveway concerts inspired her to coordinate something similar on Mondale Court, social distancing style. As Jakovec says in the film, "We were of course locked down like everybody else but…that was not going well and we needed some contact."
The healing aspects of gathering and live music in the wake of COVID were not lost on Moskoff, who works as a therapist in Madison specializing in life transitions, grief and other trauma. A lifelong film enthusiast, Moskoff has taken many classes on film history and screenwriting over the years and attended all but one Wisconsin Film Festival. At last year's fest, a conversation at the opening night reception with Abigail Kruger, director of the 2022 short festival selection Amber the Acrobat, sparked the idea that Moskoff could make a film herself. "If I hadn't met [Kruger] at the film fest last year, I couldn't have imagined it happening," says Moskoff. "I found another path into getting something on the screen."
Another conversation — with Jakovec — gave Moskoff the topic for her film. Jakovec mentioned she had a concert coming up in September 2022, and Moskoff asked about the possibility of filming it. Eventually Moskoff partnered with videographer Dan LaCloche, who served as director of photography and edited the film (it's also LaCloche's first film).
Moskoff says being creative can be an effective way to heal from trauma. Creating the film was part of Moskoff's own journey of healing from the pandemic: She lost her husband to COVID in 2020. As she writes in the film's promotional materials: "I realized my only way forward was to begin to imagine again that there are stories of truth, beauty and hope that can pull us through the darkness."
Moskoff is currently working on a longer-form documentary focusing on the participants in a shamanic trip she led to the Painted Caves in southwest France in 2019.
See our other 2023 Wisconsin Film Fest coverage here.
